Managing Diversity meanstaking steps to maximize diversity’s potential advantages while minimizing the potential barriers—such as prejudice and bias—that can undermine the functioning pf a diverse workforce.

In practice, diversity management involves both compulsory and voluntary management actions. First, there are are laws requiring that employers minimize discrimination at work. But while such compulsory actions can reduce the more blatant diversity barriers, blending a diverse workforce into a close-knit and thriving community also requiresvoluntary steps. Five sets of voluntary organizational activities are at the heart of any diversity management progra,. They are:

a) Provide strong leadership. Chief executives who champion diversity typically have companies with exemplary reputations in managing diversity. Leadership here means, for instance, taking a strong personal stand on the need for change and becoming a role model for the behaviors required for the change. Some firms are more proactive than others.

b) Assess he situation. The company must assess the current state of affairs with respect to diversity to delivery management. This might entail administering surveys to measure current attitudes and perceptions towards different cultural groups within the company. Tools for measuring diversity include equal employment hiring and retention metrics, employee attitude surveys, management and employee evaluations, and focus groups.

c) Provide diversity training and education. The most commonly utilized starting point for … managing diversity is some type of the employee education program.

d) Change culture and management systems. Change the performance appraisal criteria to measure supervisors based partly on their success in reducing intergroup conflicts.

e) Evaluate the managing diversity program. Do the employee attitude surveys now indicate any improvement in attitudes towards diversity?

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